Ok so this is my follow-up to what I brought up yesterday. In Arataki Itto's Character Quest we learn that the 1933 Japanese fiction The Crying Red Oni was point for point adapted into Inazuma's lore in Genshin. (ok the blue oni didn't look human but the rest of it is spot on)
This story is just about the price of trying to get acceptance into normal society and if that price is worth it to pay. The author implies that while assimilation is productive that shouldn't mean you sacrifice your own identity to do it which is portrayed by the red oni using his best friend the blue oni to convince humans to accept him only for the blue oni to disappear from his life forever.
MiHoYo decided to give this story a better ending by having the blue oni return and for the red oni to have the chance to bring him back so they could live with the humans together. It's touching because of how difficult this future will be to create and the quest makes no light of it. Itto talks a big game but he's also arrested in the end by the Tenryou and the suffering of the blue oni is left up in the air.
Before he came out we only knew 1 thing about oni in this game. Once upon a time there were proud oni. A prominent member was Chiyo who was the Raiden Shogun's close friend. But after the Cataclysm she was corrupted and attacked Ei who had to dispatch her. Following that the onis dwindled in Inazuma and we hadn't heard of any notable oni until Itto.
What if the exile Itto talks about happened because of the attack? We're told that before the exile there was only one clan of oni but the decision to assimiliate or leave split the clan in two. When that happened the oni painted their horns with their clan's color, red for Itto's clan and blue for Takuya's. We've seen Chiyo. She doesn't have painted horns. (Actually if you notice she has natural pink horns when she's normal and then her whole body turns blue including the horns when she's corrupted. Sneaky MiHoYo.)
We learn from Itto that Inazuma was dangerous during the united oni clan days and that everybody needed Ei's protection. But Ei would only protect the oni if they gave up their ways and integrated with humanity.
Did Ei make that decision because she felt betrayed by Chiyo? That does fall in line with her immaturity and how black and white she sometimes sees the world. But if that's the case it must have been horrible for even the crimson oni and who knows just how bad it really was for the blue oni. It's impressive they've both survived this long!
And even under the new management of Kujou Sara I don't know how well it'll go. There's actually a real world parallel I could relate this to and it didn't go well for thousands of years.
Anyway do you think the exile happened before or after the Cataclysm? What do you think was Ei's reasoning? And what are your thoughts on the moral of the 1933 story: How much worth do you place on integrating into society?
Tips and Tricks from a Super Casual Genshin f2p
